18 fighter/1 favoured soul/1 rogue S&B kensei?

[NaturalHazard]

I have a level 24 bard who im not satisfied with he was a healing/ccing bard with high haggle and I want to get him a fighter past life. I was thinking of doing a S&B fighter as i've never played a S&B character only a 2wf paladin with evasion that would switch to shield for tanking raid bosses a long long time ago. I want to go to tier 5 kensei for the DPS. Use bastand swords and the 2hf weapon line, cleaves. And heavily invest in the SD line. The character is a 32 point build so first life, but has all +4 tomes. I guess with the right feat set up he could be flexible enough to switch to vanguard and I can try that out. Oh and its human. I want rogue or arti for umd and trapping, trapping is such tasty xp. Am I trying to do too much? I also want to slip in tactics and take a feat or two in that. Will Fire up the planner and come back with a break down. FS is for SP, and empower heal and quicken feats.

[C-Dog]

Trapping + UMD w/ 18 Lvls of Fighter adds a challenge, i.e. how to get enough Skill Points each level to keep those skills at(/near?) max. Human + the +4 Int Tome will ~help~, but I'd think(?) he'd need to start with at least a 12 Int, and maybe 14, depending. He'll need a decent Search to find the traps, and if you (personally, as a player) don't know where to look, add Spot to the list. All cross-class for Fighter... hmmm, tight indeed...

Of course, there are Int builds that solve that problem, and/or you could go more levels of Rogue and get Evasion/etc (and still have both Fighter PL and a 3-class TR, np).

Others will opine, I'm sure.

[NaturalHazard]

I could just skip the splashes and go full fighter the one thing that was holding me back was the self healing mainly. How do you guys playing self healing pure fighters find it? I should be able to umd scrolls even as a full fighter not sure already at 24 but it does mean having gear slotted for it. And I really do not like SF potions but if there is no other alternative. I know where the traps are in most quests I run, I can always switch in search and int gear in to look for the traps. But its not a *must* I suppose its all for the xp mainly. Mainly the high xp per minute quests I know were the traps are.

[C-Dog]

It's always better to state what your end-goals are, rather than how you think you want to get there (altho' the latter may teach you more about how the game works).

But don't panic, lots of wisdom out there, lots of ways to skin this cat.

So, goals...

o TR from Bard 24 (so MC considerations)
o High DPS, (pref. S&B Fighter, thinking Bastard w/ Cleave?)
o both Vanguard and SD lines
o Self-Healing (UMD or?)
o Trapping if at all possible
o 32 pt, Human
o +4 Tomes all Stats

That cover it?

[NaturalHazard]

It's always better to state what your end-goals are, rather than how you think you want to get there (altho' the latter may teach you more about how the game works).

But don't panic, lots of wisdom out there, lots of ways to skin this cat.

So, goals...

o TR from Bard 24 (so MC considerations)
o High DPS, (pref. S&B Fighter, thinking Bastard w/ Cleave?)
o both Vanguard and SD lines
o Self-Healing (UMD or?)
o Trapping if at all possible
o 32 pt, Human
o +4 Tomes all Stats

That cover it?

Thanks man close to it in a nutshell.

Close I do want to try kensei-SD first though but with a vanguard option, traps are optional, I don't mind if I cannot trap in every content but getting the traps in EH and some EE's would be really nice not so much EL's I don't mind not hitting those numbers.

Bah just realize...........if I want to take FS for empower healing and quicken I will have to then take those feats at epic levels............. it is kind of looking expensive wanting to trap. I could just scrap that idea and go 2 FS or take wizard as my last class at 20 and use that free feat for quicken. I might still be able to umd a lot of the utility stuff I llike just might involve gear swaping and I can take divine might with FS enhancements.

[C-Dog]

I'm really surprised no one else responded here - I'll toss some ideas out, maybe that will spark something. (If not, you can post in one of the 2 main "custom build request" threads.)

o https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5504615
o https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post1287726


One ironic thing is that, if you want S&B, one of the best ways to get there is via Bard Levels for Swashbuckler Enhancement tree! But that also gets you your self-Healing. (Think of the rest of Bard special abilities as gravy - buffs, songs, other spells, extra skill points, etc. are all secondary to the melee-focused build. Use or ignore, not central to build, NOT a caster build.)


Here's one idea - would have to be tweaked to fit (as written non-Human, some caster padding, etc.), but it seems mostly in the right direction:

o 10 Fighter \ 8 Bard \ 2 Rogue PDK
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5728079

It's an Int build that uses the Harper tree - if you don't have that, it'll still work (if not quite as well) - grab Human healing/damage enhancements and other low-hanging fruit, etc. It has both Vanguard and SD, Tier 5 WarChanter (for Freezing, which could be swapped w/ Swashbuckler?), and some racial (which could be padded out if no Harper).

(Look at this S&B bard to see what Int-based Bard Levels have to offer, and how to take best advantage of the Swashbuckler tree:
o https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...sed-WarChanter )


Swashbuckler DPS (via Bard) is solid, but does not rely on using a bastard sword/etc. - so it may(?) not be what you're looking for at all. If not, and if no one else offers anything, then try in one of the custom threads, and GL!

[NaturalHazard]

I'm really surprised no one else responded here - I'll toss some ideas out, maybe that will spark something. (If not, you can post in one of the 2 main "custom build request" threads.)

o https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5504615
o https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post1287726


One ironic thing is that, if you want S&B, one of the best ways to get there is via Bard Levels for Swashbuckler Enhancement tree! But that also gets you your self-Healing. (Think of the rest of Bard special abilities as gravy - buffs, songs, other spells, extra skill points, etc. are all secondary to the melee-focused build. Use or ignore, not central to build, NOT a caster build.)


Here's one idea - would have to be tweaked to fit (as written non-Human, some caster padding, etc.), but it seems mostly in the right direction:

o 10 Fighter \ 8 Bard \ 2 Rogue PDK
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5728079

It's an Int build that uses the Harper tree - if you don't have that, it'll still work (if not quite as well) - grab Human healing/damage enhancements and other low-hanging fruit, etc. It has both Vanguard and SD, Tier 5 WarChanter (for Freezing, which could be swapped w/ Swashbuckler?), and some racial (which could be padded out if no Harper).

(Look at this S&B bard to see what Int-based Bard Levels have to offer, and how to take best advantage of the Swashbuckler tree:
o https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...sed-WarChanter )


Swashbuckler DPS (via Bard) is solid, but does not rely on using a bastard sword/etc. - so it may(?) not be what you're looking for at all. If not, and if no one else offers anything, then try in one of the custom threads, and GL!

thanks yeah swashbuckler is nice, but I wanted to try something different before putting him back into bard again. I think I will just go pure and use scrolls, un metaed cocoon and pots. Just a question about shield deflection if you don't mind I noticed that a lot of SB builds do not have it? Not worth taking? Is there somethign in its mechanics that makes it unattractive? I see the value having it one arcanes but you can't get the bonus while shield bashing?

[Jetrule]

If I am not building fighter 20 I would not go swoord and board the capstone in vanguard is truly under rated and procs so very often you would be amazed at the difference once you hit 20 and take the vanguard capstone. If 12-18 fighter I would definitely want kensai as my main tree stalwart as my secondary and fill in from there (harper for sure if int based). Two weapons, single weapon fighting, or a falchion maul or great axe even a q.staff with access to thief acrobat are the way to go. The defenses and offenses the shield and lvl 18 vanguard core will give you are in my opinion worth say a 6-7 on the scale of one to ten mele surviveability factoring, and the benefits of significantly higher dps from a more offensive fighting style are worth a 7-10. The vanguard capstone with its constant non boss crowd control and the increasing damage resulting from nearly always striking stunned opponents brings that 6-7 up to a 7-8 at least making it a reasonable option.

The shield will always provide more protection but sword and board will never put out the damage like the other styles all other factors being equal. In difficult content killing faster and to me especially aoe killing faster on a melee is worth more to my chances of success than being able to absorb more punishment. This doesn't mean glass cannon though. Get a good defensive stance from stalwart and layer gear your defenses and certainly go for that self healing option. Remember though that dead monsters deal no damage you need to absorb.

The 1-10 scale I use is entirely my own opinion and subject to available gear and other build options for its variability.

[NaturalHazard]

im seriously considering going pure, and yeah trying out both vanguard and kensei, there are enough feats being a pure fighter and human I should be able to play around with the enhancements and try both capstones at some stage without being completely useless? Heck I could even when in kensei switch weapons to a two hander like the TF falchion I have if I want a bit more AOE dps? And if its really bad and im not having fun I can just tr out of it and still have my fighter life in the bag for this toon.

[unbongwah]

Just a question about shield deflection if you don't mind I noticed that a lot of SB builds do not have it? Not worth taking? Is there somethign in its mechanics that makes it unattractive? I see the value having it one arcanes but you can't get the bonus while shield bashing?

Shield Deflection only works while active-blocking; so it's only useful while turtling. Historically on my tanks, I only turtle to resist special atks; e.g., when the Truthful One is airborne and I'm holding onto aggro as it rains down fireballs. If you're trying to make an ULTIMATE TANK I could see taking it to use with Block Energy in Unyielding Sentinel. But 99% of the time it's a wasted feat.